DistroKid launches new payment tool at request of YouTube Creators

DistroKid, a two-year-old online music distributor, has launched a network that routes any percentage of earnings to multiple rightsholders of a track. 

DistroKid launched in 2013 to help artists post their music on digital services like Spotify and YouTube and to ensure they were paid royalties when that music was played. Initially it would pay royalties to the artist who uploaded the music and that artist would then be responsible for distributing the appropriate royalties to rightsholders.

Now, with the DistroKid Payment Network, launched overnight, the company can route any percentage of earnings to all stakeholders, including collaborators, band members, songwriters, producers, managers and labels etc.

“Currently, every existing aggregator & distributor pays only one recipient per release. The problem is that there are often many people involved in a release–who the recipient has to then manually pay,” said DistroKid founder Phil Kaplan.

"A 15-track hip-hop album could have 15 different producers and 20 different ’featured’ rappers," he told Hypebot.

The payment network offers download stats from some digital services and cover song clearances. It also allows users to set the percentage of royalties it will give each musician involved in production. Interestingly, Kaplan told Hypebot many of the requests for the update came from YouTube creators. Beforehand, there was no simple way to divide royalties made from collaborations on YouTube.

"Creators often do collaborations with other creators, and want an automated way to make sure everyone involved gets paid. DistroKid not only routes money from music (iTunes, Spotify, etc) but also routes money from ads on YouTube videos, via our ContentID integration." 

Image: DMN

DistroKid, which operates as a flat fee digital distribution platform at US$19.99, has agreements with 150+ music services including iTunes, Amazon, Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal and YouTube.

In new statistics shared today, DistroKid claims it has distributed over 700,000 songs from 90,000 artists. It has also hosted a #1 iTunes single by their artist Jack & Jack, a Top 10 Billboard single by iLoveMemphis and a Top 10 Spotify global viral song by vōx.

DistroKid’s payment network launches at the same time as Kobalt’s free app for iOS devices. Artists and songwriters can now track their earnings, synch activity, YouTube stats and music usage around the world, all in real time.

It also launches in the same week that National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) in the US finalised its deal with digital distributor Dubset Media. The deal allows NMPA members to profit from the use of their music which is used for ’derivative works’, or pieces of music which contribute to other creations, like DJ mixes and remixes.